Good Sam campground guide

OMG.
A CG is a CG is a CG.
We are not looking to perform brain surgery on the grounds of a CG! :B

If it is not what you like and/or expected?
Put your darn RV in drive and find another one down the road.

Life is too short to manic over something as trivial as a bathroom rated with 4 stars and someone thinks it's only a 2 star bathroom. :R

mowermech wrote:
My old Woodalls is the 2012 edition. I find it completely adequate for commercial parks, military parks, and some USFS campgrounds.
For detailed information about USFS campgrounds, I use this site:

http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/list/nflist.htm

Fred and Suzi Dow put a lot of effort into that site, and I have found their descriptions to be pretty much exactly the way it is!

For commercial parks, I rely more on the old Mark 1 Eyeball than any description in a book. What I see is what there really is. For a quick overnight I'm not very picky. If I plan to stay for a week or so, then I get VERY picky! I often find I do not agree with reviewers, whether it be a review of a movie, a motel, a campground, a restaurant, or wine (I once read a review praising a winery on Flathead Lake, in NW Montana. I bought some of their recommended wines, and found them rather disgusting! Most definitely not to MY taste!)
Of course, paid advertising is often unbelievable; it is geared to make the payer look as good as possible. Reality has nothing to do with it.

As for rating criteria, some things are the same no matter where (or what) the park is.
either the site measurements are accurate, or they are not.
either the number of sites is accurate, or it isn't.
either there are full hookups at each site, or there are not.
either the toilets and showers (if any) are clean or they are not.
the roads are either gravel, paved, or dirt (mud when wet).
the sites are either gravel, paved, or dirt (mud when wet).
either there is a firepit and table, or there isn't.
either there is stream or lake access or there isn't.
either the reviewer tells it like it is, or he/she doesn't.
etc.
It is NOT a "judgement call", it is either/or.

So you would "rate", meaning give a score as to whether or not the site lengths are accurate? What in your criteria constitutes accurate? Down to the foot? The inch? From where to where? Only the gravel or paved pad or do you give some length to the area behind the pad if a rig can overhang it? Does a longer site give the park a better score? If so, why would a 100' long pad be any better than a 50 foot pad for most rigs?
Are you saying you are going to score a park higher that says accurately it has 25 sites than you would a park that said it had 40, but in reality, could accommodate a couple of more rigs if necessary?
Does a park with a paved road or paved site automatically score higher than a park with gravel?
Does a park in the desert automatically score less since it does not have waterside access?
What if 45 out of the 47 sites have full hookups? Does that park score less than a park with 10 sites, all full hookup? If not, does a park with one site full hookup and the rest partial hookups get points for full hookups? Where are you going to draw the line?
Restrooms can be clean today, and filthy tomorrow. How would your reviewer know? What if your reviewer stepped into the restrooms unannounced 1 minute after Cub Scout Troop #1 30 scouts finished their showers after a 5 day hike. Is that park destined to have bad scores for dirty bathrooms?
Does a park with accurate counts of sites and accurate site lengths get a score equal to a park with dirty restrooms no full hookups? If not, how are you going to weight your criteria?
And finally, how is anyone looking at your book going to know if the reviewer is telling it like it is or not? And What if their version of telling like it is doesn't fit your version. It would be entirely possible and accurate to say a park is extremely noisy because it is at the base of a waterfall. Would it be doing a potential guest a service or disservice to have a note saying "this park is extremely noisy"? And you are from Montana, so you know that any description of a park is going to be heavily dependent upon when it was visited. What is green, lush and has a raging river running through it in June can be brown, dead with an empty streambed in August. Telling it like it is isn't always the answer either.

My old Woodalls is the 2012 edition. I find it completely adequate for commercial parks, military parks, and some USFS campgrounds.
For detailed information about USFS campgrounds, I use this site:

http://www.forestcamping.com/dow/list/nflist.htm

Fred and Suzi Dow put a lot of effort into that site, and I have found their descriptions to be pretty much exactly the way it is!

For commercial parks, I rely more on the old Mark 1 Eyeball than any description in a book. What I see is what there really is. For a quick overnight I'm not very picky. If I plan to stay for a week or so, then I get VERY picky! I often find I do not agree with reviewers, whether it be a review of a movie, a motel, a campground, a restaurant, or wine (I once read a review praising a winery on Flathead Lake, in NW Montana. I bought some of their recommended wines, and found them rather disgusting! Most definitely not to MY taste!)
Of course, paid advertising is often unbelievable; it is geared to make the payer look as good as possible. Reality has nothing to do with it.

As for rating criteria, some things are the same no matter where (or what) the park is.
either the site measurements are accurate, or they are not.
either the number of sites is accurate, or it isn't.
either there are full hookups at each site, or there are not.
either the toilets and showers (if any) are clean or they are not.
the roads are either gravel, paved, or dirt (mud when wet).
the sites are either gravel, paved, or dirt (mud when wet).
either there is a firepit and table, or there isn't.
either there is stream or lake access or there isn't.
either the reviewer tells it like it is, or he/she doesn't.
etc.
It is NOT a "judgement call", it is either/or.

4X4Dodger wrote:

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
Hello All,
The 40 inspection teams who visit and rate every private park listed in the guide are contractors, without agenda influenced by rating or advertising.
They inspect and rate first, not review , then discuss listing with the camp. Their rating cannot be influenced by the listing or advertising. In my experience, they are above reproach.
The travel guide lists public camps at no cost, free,

with their provided information as a public service and that is what you pay for when purchasing the guide.
Max

While I am willing to agree that MOST of the contractor raters are honest folks just making a living and doing the best they can I find it incredibly naive to describe them as "above reproach" and "without agenda". Not even the Pope is above reproach and everyone has an agenda hidden or otherwise.

Are you really willing to contend that no rater has accepted gifts, free stays or other considerations for their reviews?

As, apparently from your name, you are an RV Park owner I find it astonishing that you don't seem to recognize that making the guide better, easier to use and more fair to all parks by correcting the rating flaws is in YOUR BEST INTEREST. Further if you are Paying for this listing in the guide it would make even more sense to make sure the book is as good as it can be...and it is surely not at this point.

Your almost blind defense of everything GSE puzzles me especially when you can read the comments of people who are your customer base telling you there are problems....???

I am still curious as to what the great flaw is in the guidebook, and what is the solution. You make the point yourself that it is impossible to have a reviewer that is completely free of any bias. People complain that it is big and awkward, yet apparently you want even more stuff in it. It rates the private parks and lists many local, state and federal parks. Obviously, parks will fall through the cracks, and some can and do refuse to be listed at all.
If you have multiple reviewing criteria, that would make the guide even more confusing. It would be very easy to devise a guidebook the rated a service or industry that should be identical wherever you go. Rating McDonalds wouldn't be hard and it would be pretty easy to come up with a rating structure. RV parks, state parks, national parks, forest service campgrounds, Corp or Engineer parks and the like not so easy. They are different by design. A park in Toledo Ohio is going to be very different from a park next to the Grand Canyon. A forest service park in the Sequoia National forest would need to be scored differently than a BLM park in the Senora Desert.
Some of the complaints about the book are legit, but often still lack an easy solution. The way the parks' locations are listing is an example already discussed in this thread. a true issue, but no easy repair.
Too many people forget Good Sam is a for profit entity. They are going to spend their money, effort and time on reviewing, rating and yes, selling advertising, to private parks. There is no upside to them spending thousands of additional man-hours collecting more data on publicly owned parks. That information would not allow them to materially raise the price of the book. It wouldn't sell them more advertising. And it might very well cause some advertisers to re-direct their advertising dollars away from Good Sam. I know I wouldn't want my listing and ad to be buried in a sea of reviews and listings for the public parks in my areas. I have already decreased my advertising in the guidebook because I feel print advertising is a dying quail and I have redirected those funds to internet and mobile platforms. I assume Good Sam also has a handle on the changing world of advertising and has already made the decision that putting more resources into any paper product is not a good business decision.

SDcampowneroperator wrote:
Hello All,
The 40 inspection teams who visit and rate every private park listed in the guide are contractors, without agenda influenced by rating or advertising.
They inspect and rate first, not review , then discuss listing with the camp. Their rating cannot be influenced by the listing or advertising. In my experience, they are above reproach.
The travel guide lists public camps at no cost, free,

with their provided information as a public service and that is what you pay for when purchasing the guide.
Max

While I am willing to agree that MOST of the contractor raters are honest folks just making a living and doing the best they can I find it incredibly naive to describe them as "above reproach" and "without agenda". Not even the Pope is above reproach and everyone has an agenda hidden or otherwise.

Are you really willing to contend that no rater has accepted gifts, free stays or other considerations for their reviews?

As, apparently from your name, you are an RV Park owner I find it astonishing that you don't seem to recognize that making the guide better, easier to use and more fair to all parks by correcting the rating flaws is in YOUR BEST INTEREST. Further if you are Paying for this listing in the guide it would make even more sense to make sure the book is as good as it can be...and it is surely not at this point.

Your almost blind defense of everything GSE puzzles me especially when you can read the comments of people who are your customer base telling you there are problems....???

Hello All,
The 40 inspection teams who visit and rate every private park listed in the guide are contractors, without agenda influenced by rating or advertising.
They inspect and rate first, not review , then discuss listing with the camp. Their rating cannot be influenced by the listing or advertising. In my experience, they are above reproach.
The travel guide lists public camps at no cost, free,

with their provided information as a public service and that is what you pay for when purchasing the guide.
Max

I would think everyone could tell where you are: read signs - Kingston: 10 miles ahead, etc., look at a map and know what town you just past through then you can easily judge what's coming up. I don't recall ever not knowing where I am!

westernrvparkowner wrote:

Bob Vaughn wrote:
I think my main complaint is wading thru all the superfulous information to find a campground. When I am traveling an looking for my next stop I find it confusing to find a campground on the road that I am on.

That is actually a legit concern, but how would someone change it? Couldn't be just by roads, I mean I-70 is several thousand miles long. By cities? That's how it is now, unfortunately you need to know the name of every Tom Dick and Harry suburb to find a park in the big cities, but if you changed it to list all the parks in Los Angeles area, the park you locate might be 5 hours away from you even though you are in that trade area. Thankfully, the internet, GPS, smart Phones and mapping software solves those problems. The big problem is probably that Paper anything just isn't going to be the best source of info.

You make some very good points about the guides use-ability. And I think many agree with you. So many parks are in small towns or suburban areas with incorporated names that it is very hard to find a particular park at times in the area you want to be in.

Ray-EOD wrote:
My wife and I are new the RV world and as young (50+) cyber techs we went the smart phone app rout. First time in camper world and looked at the good sam guide, we know that would never work for us.
We are extremely please with the app we are using and can find most (nothing has them all) RV parks quickly.
I would like to see Camping world come out with an app with search features and routing info like some of the other smart phone apps, but for now we are happily using our phones and tablets with the other apps.

Eventually Online Apps will be the way GS Guide will be forced to go. However it will require them to make many of the changes discussed here. Mostly in readability and use-ability ways. And there wont be all those Ads. (The way the book is set up now I actually rely more on the park ads then I do on the text or the ratings....It's scary when the ads are more accurate than the ratings in giving you a "feel" for a place.):)

westernrvparkowner wrote:

4X4Dodger wrote:

ETyson wrote:
Hello Shearwater,

I am sorry to read you were not satisfied with the Good Sam RV Travel Guide.

The listings you refer are complementary listings, and include public parks (state, national and provincial). These listings do have limited information, but all include a phone number and either an address if a private campground, or directions if a public park, and we offer the park the option to enhance their information in their listing. We always encourage users to call ahead to confirm amenities and if space is available before arriving.

Please note that ALL private campgrounds, whether Good Sam or not, are rated and inspected each year.

Your feedback is very much appreciated and we always take it seriously when we begin working on future editions of the Travel Guide.

Kind regards,

Ellen
Sr. Marketing and Product Manager
Good Sam Enterprises

With respect, at the price of that book and the amount of very expensive advertising that is in it there is little excuse for not having complete ratings on ALL included campgrounds.

I am sure you are aware that the real reason for the minimal attention to NON Good SAM parks is that the idea is to drive people to the good Sam parks and not others. While I agree with this premise to a point it is completely out of balance in this publication. The book has many many flaws that make it hard to use and not very useful unless you are looking to staying in a big resort type park with the Good Sam seal of approval.

I think many feel as I do that it is a good idea poorly executed and could be so much more useful. (I use mine to stop up the heater vent in the bathroom of my TT.)

I think Mr. Lemonis might want to lessen his TV appearances and focus more on his customers. There seems to be a growing sentiment that Customer service and the needs and ideas of the customers are not a priority at GSE.

Camping World sells the 1664 page book for $11.95. If you consider that to be expensive, you should really find another hobby. The book and Good Sam make it very clear the book is intended to rate PRIVATE campgrounds and RV parks. The ratings criteria are designed to rate those campgrounds. From what I can tell, all the private campgrounds listed in the book do have a rating, an address and a phone number. Most have a bunch of additional information. Local, state, and federal parks have addresses and phone numbers. They are not rated, nor should they be, since they are not private parks and they are built much differently. They generally do not have showers, utilities and the like. A state park or national park would score very low if rated using Good Sam's criteria. It would do them a disservice if they were rated, not help them.
This is America, if you think the world needs a book that rates state parks, create it. Nothing is stopping you. If this thread is an indication there are two or three customers just pining to get their hands on the first issue. You grouse about Marcus Lemonis wasting his time on TV when he should be reviewing campgrounds, yet you are wasting your time complaining about someone's business plan when you should be writing and compiling your own guidebook that apparently would be the cat's meow.

I am not sure why you exhibit so much hostility over this issue especially with my post. But you might want to stop and think a minute about all of those that agree with me. They are YOUR customers westernrvparkowner and it might behoove you to listen to the issues being brought up here as they affect you too.

I never claimed Mr Lemonis was wasting his time...only that his focus should be more on his customer base. The landscape is littered with former "celebrity" CEO's that eventually lost their companies because they lost their focus on what is truly important.

You seem to react almost reflexively to any criticism of GSE, the Guide or any other arm of The Conglomerate and rush to their defense. You risk sounding like a corporate apologist.

Just for clarification the retail price of the book is $25.95. Yes you do get a discount as a gsc member but that is not it's actual retail price. I also did not mention state or national parks.

And if I was inclined to write my own book...an entirely unrealistic undertaking for one person...you can bet it would be easier to access, to handle, more complete, more fair not only to parks like yours but all the others and with a rating system that actually informs instead of advertises. As I have said before GSE has a good thing here just poorly executed in some significant ways. However since there is virtually no competition they have little incentive to make the changes.

You seem to cherish the staus quo. I look for ways to progress.